EDOF & the CNN Freedom ProjectJoin Forces for

The Essam and Dalal Obaid Foundation (EDOF), which has a strategic partnership with CNN to support the CNN Freedom Project, recently saw the fruits of its partnership realized in the huge success of #MyFreedomDay.

This initiative, which took place on March 14, 2017, involved a wide array of activities aimed at calling attention to the continuing problem of modern-day slavery. The activities included students from hundreds of schools on six continents making anti-slavery signs and sharing them on social media; activists, journalists, and NGOs facilitating and broadcasting anti-slavery messages and conversations; and celebrities like Usain Bolt and Simone Biles posting videos on what freedom means to them.

Global Awareness

By any measure, this global campaign was an enormous success. All local CNN correspondents visited schools to report on the campaign. Students of all ages in schools of every shape and size raised their voices in the most imaginative, creative and passionate ways possible, and CNN made sure they were heard. In fact, the global coverage was so well received that CNN editorial teams decided to produce a 30-minute wrap up show on March 18th at 930pm CET and March 19th at 230am CET.

Though the initiative was highly supported and amplified by TV, it was mostly digitally led. The Freedom Project site was heavily promoted all day on the CNN Homepage. On social media, there were more than 10,000 posts to the #MyFreedomDay hashtag with hundreds of schools from all over the world participating. The digital conversation extended across Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and YouTube.

"The global engagement that we saw during the #MyFreedomDay project was astonishing. Students, journalists, activists, and celebrities from around the world joined forces to fight modern-day slavery. Anyone interested in human rights, as both EDOF and CNN are, must be highly pleased with the outcome. It is totally unacceptable that slavery still exists in our world, yet to see so many people expressing their resistance to it, one begins to have hope that it will some day be no more."